About us

Alaap is a social enterprise working towards a future where nature and people thrive in harmony.

Embedded within the communities and forests of Uttarakhand’s Kumaun region, Alaap works on native forest creation through enterprise and community leadership.

Native Forest Creation

The state of our forests is the root cause behind the climate change impacts we see in the Himalayas today – gradual desertification, the drying of Himalayan rivers, the increase in animal-human conflict and the slow erosion of the farming culture of the mountains.

Alaap is building native mixed-species forests in Kumaun using the Miyawaki method, a proven methodology which helps grow native forests faster and more biodiverse than traditional methods.

Eco-leadership

We cannot bring back our forests without investing in people, and we cannot invest just in the problem.

Forget stewardship. We need to create, support and champion community leaders who embody the very essence of a native forest itself: a diverse community that together forms a robust and self-sufficient ecosystem, in harmony with all elements of nature.

Co-creation

Our work cannot happen without collaboration. The ecosystem Alaap is operating in is strengthened by collaborating and co-creating with communities, governments and academia.

In this ecosystem, every entity has to play out its role: the state, the community, the social enterprise as well as civil society.

2016 for us was a year of explorations and queries; 2017 a year of experiments and pilots. Over 2018, we have been attempting to create a blueprint of a model that is innovative, scalable and creates real impact.